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Consumer Attitudes towards Social Media Market Research #casrotech

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This morning at the CASRO Annual Technology Conference in New York City, I presented the results of a new survey that Vovici conducted to better understand the attitudes of American consumers towards the use of social media by market researchers.

We conducted a convenience sample of 426 U.S. members of the Western Wats panel, asking them about their concern about Internet privacy, their awareness of market research use of social media and their attitudes towards such use. (Caveat: This survey cannot be projected to the entire American online population.)

Of the respondents, 95% were concerned about their privacy on the Internet, and 40% were very or extremely concerned. Among the comments of those who were extremely concerned:

• "I don't like the idea that companies can follow me around on the internet and identify me personally. I don't mind being part of a generic demographic, but when they can identify me, follow my activities about everything I do on the internet and target me specifically, then it's gets a little scary and I worry about my privacy."
• "Too much personal info in the wrong hands in this day and time."
• "Spying, lying, snooping, and watching for no good reason."

Despite their privacy concerns, 40% of respondents post comments to web sites using their real names, and 15% use a photo portrait of themselves.

69% of respondents were aware that "organizations monitor and analyze public Internet discussions". When asked which type of organizations did this, 52% of respondents identified law-enforcement agencies and 45% said that they were aware that market researchers did this: a much larger group than I would have anticipated.  Surprisingly to me, only 15% of respondents were aware that service departments were monitoring social media; given that many news stories about social media monitoring involve customer service, I expected consumers to be very aware of this type of activity.

The questionnaire then went on to describe social media market research: 

Market researchers, service departments and marketing departments often analyze comments made on the Internet to understand consumer attitudes and satisfaction with products and services. Researchers want to understand what people think; service departments want to follow up to improve satisfaction; marketing departments may want to make you aware of competing products.  

Respondents discussed some of the things they liked and disliked about such research:

• Likes
• "It provides marketing researchers with an understanding of the real life reaction to a given product. That, in turn, leads to a better product for consumers."
• "They can provide a better product/service based on what the actual customers are saying, rather than the focus group they put together."
• "It makes sense. It would be the most raw and most likely emotionally real response that could be given."
• "I like that when studying comments, those comments are actually put into action to please their customers." 
• Dislikes
• "A little too close to ‘Big Brother is watching'.  But you should know enough to never post if you don't want others to read it."
• "I don't like that they invade our privacy in the first place. If we wanted them to know, we would contact them."
• "I like nothing about this.  If it is social media, it should be social media and not for research."
• "It is skeezy and lecherous stealing data that they would otherwise have to pay for."
• "I feel that their opinion is a waste of time and that this type of job should be eliminated."

Ouch! So market researchers are parasites on the social graph, and our jobs shouldn't even exist. Clearly, some consumers -- even those, as in this case, paid to take part in an online survey! -- aren't fond of market research.

In my presentation this morning, I recapped the four social media research ethical debates that I've written about before (see Debating the Ethics of Social Media Research) and discussed how these survey results might guide us as we determine what's best. I then asked the audience:

• What are other social media ethical issues to be considered?
• What is our responsibility to the long-term health of our industry?
• Should CASRO codify social media research ethics?

You'll have to wait for another post to read about their answers!

Survey Disclosure